Back to ShishiKami's Profile ShishiKami's Profile

To get straight to the point, this anime is just another power fantasy with a boring OP male lead, the type of which we've seen many times over.

The first episode seemed promising to me. However that was soon cast aside. A real bait and switch. Story wise this is extremely mid, if that.

Our main character is a strong independent ikemen who don't need no team. The way in which he's always this ultra cool, calm and collected, calculating galaxy brain who mindgames all the npc's around him is not only cringe, it makes each episode extremely uninteresting. Our main character gets a random ... post-puberty growth spurt and glowup just to emphasize how, apparently, pathetic he was before and how different and ALPHA he is now. I joke, but truly everything about the writing in this tries to convince you what a badass he has become and it's annoying to watch. Girls love him, people shake in their boots just by the way he glares, and if it wasn't already obvious how cool he is, someone will blatantly point out for you how cool and strong what he did was. I don't know why I still believe the hype surrounding trending anime when I should know better.

There's a few girls introduced at the time of writing this, one of which seems to be a damsel in distress. She's sweet, she's hot, and most importantly she doesn't know what to do without our gigachad. If there's one wish I have for this anime it's for her to at least be able to hold her own at some point.

The world is just about interesting enough to keep watching. It's just annoying that the main character is as unlikeable as he is. I'd have taken any other character over him. I know I'm probably not the target audience for this, and for a younger audience I think this will be just fine.

If you're like me, just watching to pass some time: don't expect interesting characters or story, just empty your head and watch the flashy pixels.

If you like action and fantasy anime, disregard the low rating and consider watching this.

This anime approaches story telling from a slightly different angle, and I'm guessing it's due to that that the score doesn't reflect the quality that I personally see in it. For the first 5 episodes, the story was a bit confusing but interesting and enjoyable none the less. With each episode a new important character is introduced, which means you kind of jump from one part of the story to another. Once all the puzzle pieces have been laid on the table, the story starts connecting.

I've been watching this with ... great enjoyment, and honestly find it very refreshing. Unlike the typical main character power fantasy, this anime gives you multiple characters to follow and learn about. The main characters are each interesting in their own ways, and I especially love that there's non-human main characters.

The animation is nice and the music fits the atmosphere for the time period and cultural settings.

It's unfortunate that there will only be 12 episodes, because I'd love to see more of this world and its inhabitants, and its magic system. So far based on enjoyment it's an 8 to me.

Chainsaw man received so much hype that I felt the need to pick it up and see for myself what it was all about. My opinion? It has some good moments, embedded in a sea of mid storytelling. This is just going to be my thoughts on certain aspects of the manga. I'll try to be as vague as possible with spoilers, so let’s get into it.

Overall I think the story built itself up pretty nicely in the first ten-some chapters. It’s when the reader experiences the first significant death of a character that imo things start getting a little blurry. Suddenly characters are popping ... up left and right, and personally I had little idea how much time had passed between chapters. At some point it started feeling chaotic. Like the mangaka was too excited for his own plot to unravel, and started dishing out fight after fight after fight. Even the people you were made to believe were crazy strong 5 chapters ago, turned out to be easily defeated by what I’d like to call the Power Creep demon. I didn’t understand why it all had to go so fast. Some characters with good potential like the Bomb Demon and the Crossbow Devil Hybrid were, imo, thrown into battle too fast. We barely knew who they were before we learned they’re an enemy. It's wasted potential.

With that said, what sets Chainsaw Man apart from other shounen is that it’s not afraid to kill off important characters that readers are attached to. I wish more mangaka did this. I would rather a character just die, than be saved by plot armor. I do have some things that bothered me with killing off characters though, and that lies mainly in the fact that when a character dies I want to feel it, and that wasn’t the case with any of these deaths.
If you’re gonna kill off someone, I want to feel the life they left behind. And I want that grim, dark hole that a characters death left to be felt in the next chapters too. Show me their clothes they will never wear again, their bed they will never sleep in again, the jokes they used to make you will never hear again or the habits they had that you will never get annoyed by again. It just wasn’t there. It felt hollow. I hope this scene will carry more weight in the anime, the way this character deserves.

To give an example from a death that i think was done exceptionally well from FMA:B, (SPOILER obv.) when Hughes died, that hurt for the rest of the show (END spoiler). But even with an important characters death in Chainsaw Man, I guess I felt the way in which it happened was sad, but the next chapter it didn’t really bother me. To really make a reader have that lingering feeling of sadness, you have to have proper follow up in the next chapters. To me the chapters after this death felt rushed, so the impact just wasn’t really there for me. A few blank stare panels and "my head is so full" speech bubbles just don't cut it for me. No one ever shed one tear for that character. And Denji himself got over it pretty quick too.

Some other thing that bothered me is the strength of some of these demons. Supposedly a demon gains its strength from how feared it is by humans. Darkness? Many people are afraid of the dark, I get it. Guns? Oh yes, absolutely understand why it's so strong. Chainsaws? Yeah sure, those can be scary when used for anything other that cutting logs or w/e, but who really is actively afraid of chainsaws? Dolls? Hmm... I mean I guess. Fucking CONTROL? WHAT? WHO.
I quote the wiki: "(...) embodies the fear of control or conquest". Somebody tell me what the motherfuck this even means. If this is about war, then why is the War Demon so weak. The power scaling makes no sense. Basically whatever sounds cool to the writer is strong, and whatever doesn't is Plot Filler Demon.

Regarding character development. Throughout the 112 chapters I’ve read atm, Denji has had minimal of it, which is a big missed opportunity. He is still down abysmally. He still doesn’t use his brain when fighting. He has no other reason for fighting other than getting girls, i.e. down cataclysmically. If you put Denji from chapter 1 next to Denji from chapter 112, they are one and the same. Out of all characters in the show Aki has the most character development, and he isn’t even the main character.

Lastly, I will always have a gripe with the tired ass trope of finding any excuse to make female characters fight nude or semi-nude simply because they're female. Why she fighting naked? Why is she in her underwear? Where are her panties? Why the fuck is there bare ass in my fight? If your target demographic is young males there just has to be nudity I guess. Also, aren't they 16? I digress. Annoying, but it comes with the territory.

Having said all that, I do enjoy reading each chapter. As confusing as it sometimes is, and as rushed as it may sometimes feel, one thing Chainsaw Man will never be is boring. You read through the chapters in no time, as it’s filled with action, and the curiosity for what happens next is hard to resist.

This review contains spoilers.

This anime could've been nice. Unfortunately for some reason it went down a path I simply cannot defend.

I find the world building to be alright. What I like the most is that they went out of their way to make different languages. From an anime that goes into such detail I would expect so much more than for the main character to be a 34 year old pedophile who cannot contain his lust for prepubescent girls. I keep seeing people say this is supposed to be Rudeus' redemption story. But to me there is no redemption for a pedophile who acts ... on his desires.

People say "but he is a kid". Except he is not. He is a 34 year old in the body of a child. If I, an adult, were to be put into the body of a 10 year old right now, I could never find myself to be attracted to a child. Because I'm not a fucking pedophile. This is how any non-pedophilic adult would act. Once you become a certain age, children are just not in the slightest attractive. The thought of attraction to them doesn't even pop up. But here we have Rudeus ogling at 5 and 10 year olds.

It's like the writer tried desparately to find a loophole for pedophelia. Since you obviously can't make something which outright depicts it, why not kill the MC in his own universe and then have him be reborn with him technically being the exact same, except for his appearance. Yeah, that'll do it. Now he can fondle kids in peace. He admitted he'd like to groom Sylphie into his ideal woman when she was 5. Redemption my ass, there is no redemption for this.

"But it's a different world, they become adults at 15 over there!" I don't care where he is. There is no excuse for pedophiles who act on their desires. Besides their version of 'adult' is nothing but a title. Physically they are in fact, still children.
"If you're uncomfortable the writer succeeded in his goal" no, the writer just likes glorifying pedophilia. What is supposed to be the deeper message here? 'Look at this awful MC he's a proud kid diddler, btw look Eris just hit him how funny! But he'll do it again, just you wait!' Such deep.

"He was a NEET in his past life, he doesn't know any better". Ah yes, I'll be sure to remember this. Next time someone does something absolutely deplorable let's just give them a pass because they're socially inept. It's so painfully clear what type of people defend this character.

"Great, another one of those woke twitter libs". Fellas, is it woke to not be a pedophile?

Putting the pedophilia issue aside, this show also has a massive problem with glorifying sexual assault. Eris being groped in her sleep, being pinched in her nipple, Roxy being groped by Pax to the point she had to leave. 9 out of 10 male characters in this are absolutely disgusting. Ruijerd, Geese and Gyes seem to be one of the few likeable/normal male characters. Even Paul is kind of likeable in this season. That is a better redemption arc than whatever the fuck Rudeus is doing.

There never seems to be any moment that they learn from their behavior. If you're going to make it so that in this universe women are treated like trash, then at least make sure you let the message be clear that this is unacceptable behavior. Show how sexual assault traumatizes people. How it changes their relationships, how people find it difficult to get close to and trust others. Make it realistic. Don't make a 'silly' comedic moment out of it with no repercussions whatsoever for the assailant. This anime literally tries to make you to laugh at sexual assault. This writer had the sense to give MC PTSD from bullying, but can't comprehend that people can get PTSD from sexual assault? Rudeus and Eris' relationship is not once affected by the never-ending sexual harassment and assault she is subjected to. She doesn't grow distant or weary of him. Nothing. Is this supposed to be good writing? The argument that she forgives him because she likes him is so lazy. If your crush continuously overstepped your boundaries that would 100% negatively affect your relationship with them. Yet there are never any consequences. This is just bad writing because the writer needs a girl to fall in love with this loser MC.

And let's get this clear. If you grope someone, pinch their nipples, etc. without their consent you are not "a pervert". You are a sex offender. Let's not sugarcoat what MC is. I see a lot of people doing this and it honestly trivializes the depravity of his actions.

Also, Rudeus temporarily refraining from acting on his desires, only to literally have sex with his freshly 15 year old cousin the next moment is not learning from your past mistakes. You are 34 + 13, get a fucking grip.

The way this show depicts women is another thing. They are either literal children (or look like a child), hypersexualized women, or both. There is no other variety. There are no grownup women that aren't used for male entertainment. I am aware there is an ecchi tag, but truly the ecchi elements only take away from this anime. They add nothing of value. I honestly don't understand which angle they were going for here, wanting both an engaging story and ecchi at the same time. You're gonna cheapen your own story.

On top of that, I feel like in 23 episodes we could've had so much more character development than we got. Rudeus hasn't learned much besides learning that people die when they are killed, don't use people as your pawns, and overcoming his fear of going outside. Whenever there is opportunity to actually make him have to do work to grow as a person, the writer just drops a Deus Ex Machina. Need your MC to learn not to judge people based on hearsay? Don't let him go through that learning process by himself silly, just let a literal god tell him that he should trust that man! You'd think someone who was judged as badly as he was in his past life could learn to have compassion for a fellow outcast. The writer could have actually done something with that and let him grow naturally. Is your MC in danger of being outpowered by his underaged love interest? Have the god arrange an encounter where he gets an overpowered demon eye which are supposedly very rare and difficult to master but of course Rudeus learns how to master it in a WEEK because he's just that special. What a chad. They couldn't even be assed to show this week because they just timeskip it and have him tell you "it took a week". Your MC is stuck in captivity and has no way of getting out? The tyrant's brother is an otaku that'll get him get out for no reason other than his obsession with figurines. Lazy writing. Plot armor galore.

Lastly, I wouldn't call the world setting unique, but it's nice enough. However, in 23 episodes I should know more about this world than I do. Little is known about these continents besides that the central continent is very tame, and the demon continent is very dry, hot and dangerous. We haven't even seen as much as a map of this world.

I honestly wish I could rate this anime higher. It had the potential to be a nice piece of work. The sound is nice, the animation is nice, the story is decent, the voice acting is nice, but the main character being who he is and having done what he has done, makes it impossible for me. Had he not slept with Eris there might have been the possibility of a redemption story, but that is no longer possible.

Overall: 3/10

This is my first review so I'll try to put this as simply as possible. [It does contain some spoilers.]

This anime has great animation, decent story, but little character depth. It's nice enough to watch and be ok with it, but not nice enough to be considered great in my opinion, because the characters are just lacking so far.

Story (6/10):
So far the story is alright. It centers Fena who has some connection with Eden, a place where all of the worlds treasures are kept, but no one is able to find. Fena herself has no memories of who she really is, and where she ... is from. Different groups of people seem to want to use her for their own gain. It's not a very unique story, but interesting enough to keep you watching.

There's a few moments where you think it's going to be one way, and they end up doing the other. So I'll give some points for not always being predictable.

Art (8/10):
The art is nice. The animation is fluid with pretty colors. What can I say, it just looks good.

Sound (7/10):
The sound is alright. I like the opening so that's bonus points. I haven't noticed anything that stands out as good or bad besides the opening, so can't say much about it.

Characaters (3/10):
Though I like the character designs, they don't seem to have that much depth so far. There's the twins with the funny accent, the friendly giant who doesn't speak much, the mechanics girl who loves guns, the dependable leader, the handsome ladies man and the love interest.

Fena seems to be a Mary Sue, everyone loves her, she's beautiful, from a distinguished family, she's quirky, possibly a powerful witch, and wants to protect her love interest.

Yukimaru doesn't seem to have any goal in life besides protecting Fena. He's a quiet guy who swiftly kills any enemy who stands in his way. When Fena is in trouble all she has to do is yell his name and he'll save her just in time. If she talks too much he'll karate chop her head, and whenever Fena makes him flushed his ears will turn red.

Shitan seems to be the only one who has some more depth to his character as he was seen to be in actual conflict with his own morals. Choosing between his people and saving this random girl they met a couple weeks earlier. Listening to his reasoning he seemed to be the only one making some sense. Though he seemed to be making a bit too much sense for anime, because after Fena throws one tantrum, and him squeezing her cheeks she seems to have won him over, and that's all it took.

So, besides Shitan the characters seem pretty straight forward. I can't be bothered with the other characters. They're too flat to give any commentary on anyway. Despite not having much depth, that doesn't mean they're completely unenjoyable. They're fun to look at and well voiced by the VA's. I'm sure most people have seen much worse so this probably doesn't even register as bad for most. Flat characters can definitely be fun too, the problem is just that there's no strong round characters to make up for them in this anime.

Enjoyment (7/10):
I enjoy watching simply because it's visually pleasing. You can watch each episode with ease and before you notice you're already at the end of it.

Overall (6/10):
Nice anime to pass the time. If you like romance this will probably be something you'll like. If you're looking for well fleshed out characters, look elsewhere. While this anime is not perfect, it's definitely not trash.